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<title>Varadar Tau Cosplay: A Saga. by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28197699">Varadar Tau Cosplay: A Saga.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels'>Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Barrayar (Fictional TV Show)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Barrayar (Fictional TV Show) - Freeform, Cosplay, Meta, Work Contains Fandom Elements, Yuletide 2020, Yuletide Treat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:01:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28197699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>My wife promised me that she'd cosplay as Boat if I did Varadar Tau. Little did I know that it would be a journey of freeze frames, dim lighting, and bumping into Matt Schnee at the worst possible moment. A BarraCon 2008 report.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Varadar Tau Cosplay: A Saga.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/gifts">james</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/300734">Barrayar Expects That Every Fan Will Do Their Duty: Excerpts From A Fandom</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels">Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to redstapler for the beta!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You all know me. I'm a sucker for every Star Trek ripoff they've ever made. Give me a show that tries too hard and owns it, give me a romance between a man and a spaceship, give me dudes in tight-fitting pants and laser blasters and tricorders and no pockets because it would ruin the line-- you all know me.</p><p>This year, with Barrayar plunging to new heights and/or depths this season, Raizie had a truly genius idea. We'd go to BarraCon 2008 in a couples costume. She'd be Boat. I'd be Varadar Tau. She was, she told me, giving me the easy assignment. How hard could it be to play Mr. Sexy Bandit? All I'd need is a Napoleonic War naval uniform without any of the parts that make it seem like a uniform. I could reuse half of Jonsey from Major Barrett's BlastOff, I'd be set. </p><p>Doable, right? Maybe even easy? We had four months. So while Raizie was working out the construction of a spaceship-as-wearable-art, I was pouring through promotional images. And hit a problem.</p><p>I'll back up. Varadar Tau's coat has three main stages. There's the backstory coat from flashbacks: sleeves hit above the wrist, full movement in the shoulders. Schnee could do a somersault in it and not miss a beat. Then there's the season 1 coat: uncomfortable, bulky, poorly made. Then Varadar Tau loses the coat and only this season showed up again in one based off the backstory coat: functional, but looks enough like Hazelbright's that you can tell they share a tailor, if not a sense of style.</p><p>So I was going to go with the backstory costume, obviously, right? Comfortable, easiest to move around in, and I don't need to deal with all the million buttons that Varadar Tau somehow picked up on shore leave while getting drunk with Vortalon. I was in the clear.</p><p>Except there's no clear promotional shot of Varadar Tau wearing the damn thing.</p><p>To the DVDs we go! And... well, it's flashbacks. It's in motion, sometimes with helpful motion blur or fading to embrace the effect. I didn't realize until now that Varadar Tau never stands still in the past. I took as many screenshots as I could and compared them and couldn't get a full shot all at once. Most of them aren't well-lit. Worse, it seemed to me like there might have been more than one coat in use in those scenes. The close-ups on the sleeves in Fool are really not the same sleeves as in Hazelbright's Admission. Looks like Varadar Tau spent his time as a privateer making heavy use of his sewing machine.</p><p>What about General Gold's resource posts? No luck, she's only done s1 and s2 regular costumes fully. I e-mailed her an SOS and she agreed with me that it's probably two, or even three, different coats used for different scenes across the episodes. She gave me a link to a pattern she thought might work for it, but cautioned me that she couldn't promise it would. On me the consequences would be, I assured her.</p><p>And on me the consequences were. While a spaceship was being constructed in the sewing room around me, I measured and cut and sewed and ripped out three entire coats. In the end, it's mostly <a href="">this pattern</a> that Pat made for a Space Hornblower Who Rides A Motorcycle costume, but I made heavy modifications, so all the math errors are mine, not Pat's.</p><p>The rest of the costume was easy. I reused the shirt, vest, and trousers, adding buckles and buttons and some strategic lace appliques. The pocket square and hose took all of ten minutes of rummaging and the boots didn't even need adjustments aside from scuffing them strategically.</p><p>And then we got to the fun part. The best part. The part that got Raizie away from the glue gun long enough to help me try out options. Because a key part of any Varadar Tau costume is... the bulge.</p><p>How prominent to make it? Our first try was more pornographic than practical; I had problems walking with it. But it couldn't be too small; how else could I lean against a wall and make eyes at any Hazelbrights who walked by? He's not Varadar Tau if you can't screenshot his dick. </p><p>Reader, I swaggered around that sewing room like a drunken aristocrat.</p><p>Eventually we settled on a size and got on with our lives. At our final trip to the craft store, we got some last-minute replacement lace ribbons to tie back my hair into a low ponytail and even found a silver earring that looked enough like Boat's insignia if we added a couple extra charms. (I was never going to try to make that from scratch. I know my limits.)</p><p>Our progress photos are <a href="">here</a>, <a href="">here</a>, and <a href="">here</a>. Final photoshoot is coming.</p><p>But that's not what you came to hear about. You came to hear about the inappropriate interaction with a film star at BarraCon.</p><p>Saturday night, Raizie got a little lost in Boat and we had to take most of it off of her and find a corner for emergency repairs. So there we were, in an empty panel room, Raizie in her grey bodysuit and bottom half of her costume, me fully in costume, the repair kit strewn around us.</p><p>And then... then... we turned around. A member of the con staff was escorting Matt Schnee between panels and had cut through the room. And there I was. Putting fins on to Boat's... aft, one hand inside the costume and the other bracing on the outside as I tried to hold it in place and tie a knot at the same time.</p><p>Raizie meeped. I nearly did the same thing, then remembered I was in costume. Fully in character, I drew myself up (without dropping any of the fins; those are delicate!). I declared, "have no concern. I am a Varadar. I would not touch any ship if I were not married to her as her captain."</p><p>Matt Schnee, who has absolutely seen worse at cons than a woman cosplaying as him while also feeling up a spaceship, simply nodded and said, "Carry on, shipmate."</p><p>And then they left and Raizie and I collapsed in hysterics on the floor.</p><p>And, yes, we got Boat fixed up. Because am I not a Varadar? Have I no pride? (Yes, I have no pride.)</p><p> </p><p>Links!</p><p>-<a href="">Raizie's construction process</a><br/>
-<a href="">Raizie's con report, day 1</a><br/>
-Screenshots reference posts: <a href="">Lost</a>, <a href="">Fool</a>, <a href="">Hazelbright's Admission</a>, <a href="">Remainders</a><br/>
-<a href="">The Hazelbright backstory costume that Mattressing made!</a><br/>
-Still not finished: final write-up on pattern changes<br/>
-Still not finished: photoshoot</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1173973.html">Yuletide Reveal Post </a>
</p><p><a href="https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1171337.html">this post on dreamwidth</a>; <a href="https://lannamichaels.tumblr.com/post/639122903306321920/varadar-tau-cosplay-a-saga-lanna-michaels">this post on tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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